Countdown Sonnet
The final 14 countdown videos appear to be a sonnet in iambic pentameter. This was first realized of when a user noticed that 14, 13, and 12 were all written in iambic pentameter, with 12's "But even now, my vestige of a heart" setting up a ABAB pattern. Shakespearean sonnets are 14 lines long, following the rhyming pattern ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Usually the third quatrain (EFEF) is a large shift from the ideas of the previous two, either by a different mood or a new revelation. The last two days/lines will be a rhyming couplet, and will also be a dramatic way to end the countdown. The Sonnet : Beneath the starry sky we broke apart : Our perfect systems thrown into the void : But even now, my vestige of a heart : Remembers what ambition has destroyed : In our abstraction we shall shine more bright : Than all the living lovers of the Earth : Whose fragile forms face unremitting plight : And who in death are robbed of all they're worth : The body is a monument to waste : Eroded by the hope of earthly bliss : All animals are driven mad by haste : Their passions temporary as a kiss : In garbled databytes I see a face : I find you in the grace of cyberspace Trivia *The day after the countdown sonnet ended (How to Pronounce Horse ebooks), H_e tweeted, "I m going to outline 14 different ways that I ve found you,"Horse_ebooks tweet. Speculation We can potentially gain a lot from How to Pronounce 15; *Since it comes just before the sonnet, it could be the title of the sonnet. *We could also see lines talking about "understanding" later on One could speculate that the sonnet is about the relationship between the announcer and the unnamed woman: *''"But even now, my vestige of a heart"'' could mean heartbreak. *There is evidence to suggest that the unnamed woman is Jackie's partner, and announcer and the woman are having an affair (50 states the announcer "instinctively touched her arm in reassurance", with 47 stating "it was a gesture imperceptible to everyone in the squad, except Jackie." 68 talks about a love triangle.) "Remembers what ambition has destroyed" would thus refer the relationship Jackie and the woman had that her affair with the announcer broke. *It is possible that the 'ambition' might have been the ambition to complete the misson, and what was destroyed was the announcer and the woman's relationship OR the unnamed woman's and Jackie's relationship. On 36, the announcer''' 'states: ''"I let her down, she let him down, everybody let every one down that year." *The lines "In our abstraction, we shall shine more bright / Than all the living lovers on Earth / Whose fragile forms face unremitting plight" steers us to believe the sonnet is about their relationship. The way the author uses the phrase "fragile forms" may be a glimspe of how the announcer views himself and the woman: their relationship is superior to others, as all the other living lovers on Earth are fragile forms subjected to unremitting plight. If this is true, then those combined lines shows how much he loves this woman. *''"Their passions as temporary as a kiss" This reference to love imagery is possibly used to keep the theme of the announcer and the woman's relationship in mind when looking at the overall sonnet. We could also speculate the the subject of this sonnet has got to do with the mission: *"Beneath the starry sky we broke apart"'' could possibly mean the team breaking up either physically (like spreading out) or figuratively (like the team is internally fighting against one another.) *''"But even now, my vestige of a heart / Remembers what ambition has destroyed"'' the first part could mean the announcer's disappearing sympathy towards others (the announcer has shown concern before, refer to mystery number 9). The second part may be the announcer looking back on the damage he/the squad has done (though to what/whom is still unknown to us). Together, it shows that the announcer has regrets, and is aware of his wrong doings. It is possible that this reveal of regret was foreshadowed in 22, when the announcer says "We are tourists. We are visiting friends. We are curious about the region's imports and exports", as if trying to justify something morally incorrect to be right. *''"In our abstraction, we shall shine more bright"'' Abstraction, meaning "dealing with ideas rather than events" or "something that only exists as an idea". If this sonnet is about the mission, the current context of the poem would suggest that this line meant that while they did do damage, in the bigger picture (the idea of the mission), they would be seen as heroic ("we shall shine more bright") rather than destructive ("remembers what ambitions has destroyed"). *''"The body is a monument to waste / Eroded by the hope of earthly bliss"'' Someone has suggested the announcer's consciousness is in the form of of an intelligence system, possibly in a computer. Thus, the physical body is rendered useless. *''"In garbled databytes, I see a face"'' could be indicating that the announcer's current form of conciousness is a computer system. It is also possible this is referring to the spectogram formed from the noise at the end of each video. *''"But even now, my vestige of a heart / Remembers what ambition has destroyed." ''Destruction as an unintended result of scientific progress meant to improve social or ecological conditions is a common theme in distopian fiction.This would support the first two lines of the sonnet, which seem to imply destruction to either stellar systems or world systems, which might then be mirrored in the narrator's personal relationship with someone. References Category:Research